Book Review: Legends of the Exiles by Jesse Teller (DNF)

Hi Everyone,

So as you know, not every book you read will be a game changer. Sometimes you just pick up a book that simply isn’t for you, and that’s okay. This was my experience with a recent release Legends of the Exiles by Jesse Teller.

Now, before I get into my review, please note that I did not finish this book. I will not be giving this book a star rating as a result. I’m also not here today to hate on this book, but to simply give my honest opinion. I was lucky to receive a free copy of this book by Reads & Reels, and I am still extremely grateful for the opportunity.

legendsexiles

Alright, so what first drew me in with this book was the cover. I think it’s beautiful, and I love the splashes of color. I also have to say, I really enjoyed the beginning passage. It set the stage for what the book is about. Stories of great, inspirational women in a tribe. At that point I was on board.

But when I started reading the story, I began to get a little disappointed, and ultimately indifferent.

Helena is a young woman in a tribe of warriors. Her story covers her life in different stages, from a little girl to a blossoming woman and the struggles she faces.

The world built around Helena was a little difficult to understand for me. I understood what the author was going for, but I wish it was more fleshed out than it was. The reader is given a lot of information in the beginning and later on, but it’s hard to keep track of and there isn’t much explanation. I think that if the author would’ve explained several things in little doses the story would’ve been easier to understand. Either that or taking things slower would’ve actually helped in this case.

I also felt that there were too many characters rotating around. There had to have been at least 10-20 characters in Helena’s story, and without slowly introducing each individual character and making them distinctly different I had trouble keeping track of who was who and what tribe they were from.

Lastly, I didn’t necessarily find the story very inspirational. Although I didn’t finish Helena’s story, which could account for this, I still felt that there wasn’t much development with her. Sure, bad things happen to her, and she has experiences, but I didn’t really feel like the experiences affected her much. She seemed much more interested in finding a man throughout several of her sections, and it came off as a little selfish to me.

Anyways, these are just my overall thoughts of the part of the book that I read. I do have to say I like the concept the author was going for, I just think the execution is lacking. Though I would give this book another chance later on, I’m not very sure my opinion would change that much. But who knows, this book could be for you!

If you would like to take a look at this review or others of mine, feel free to check out my reviews on Goodreads.

Happy Reading everyone!

Leave a Reply